The recall expenses have caught Wall Street’s attention as Mr. Hackett, who became CEO in May, is trying to revive investor enthusiasm for the company’s vision. He has committed to significantly cut spending on conventional car making.

The sizable expenses are the latest to hit a mainline automotive manufacturer since 2014, when revelations of deadly flaws with
General Motors Co.
ignition switches and
Takata Corp.
air bags led to eventual criminal charges against both companies and record industrywide recalls of at least roughly 50 million vehicles annually in the U.S. for several years.

Ford until recently had largely managed to avoid a number of successive, significant recall expenses, and the charges and other consequences for the company haven’t reached levels suffered elsewhere. GM spent roughly $6 billion spanning 2014 and 2015 on recalls and legal settlements stemming from the ignition switches and other safety problems. Takata, facing a multibillion-dollar recall tab, filed for bankruptcy protection.

Still, Ford’s recall charges are a reminder of the challenges traditional car manufacturers face in the race to compete with Silicon Valley tech giants on driverless vehicles. The complexity of vehicles and the supply chain needed to build them can sometimes contribute to expensive manufacturing problems just as auto makers place bets on future technologies with limited profit potential in the short run.

Total Recall

Ford’s stock price has remained stagnant amid concerns about the company’s future strategic endeavors, a period also punctuated by unexpected recall expenses.

$14

a share

Oct. 18

$267 million

Faulty door latches

on late-model

pickup trucks

13

June 28

$142 million

Defective driveshafts

on vans

12

11

Sept. 8, 2016

$640 million

Faulty door latches

on various vehicles.

March 29

$295 million

Some engines posed a fire risk;

repair defective door latches

on older cars.

10

9

’17

2016

$14

a share

Oct. 18

$267 million

Faulty door latches

on late-model

pickup trucks

13

June 28

$142 million

Defective driveshafts

on vans

12

Sept. 8, 2016

$640 million

Faulty door latches

on various vehicles.

11

March 29

$295 million

Some engines posed a fire risk;

repair defective door latches

on older cars.

10

9

’17

2016

$14

a share

Oct. 18

$267 million

Faulty door latches

on late-model

pickup trucks

13

June 28

$142 million

Defective driveshafts

on vans

12

11

Sept. 8, 2016

$640 million

Faulty door latches

on various vehicles.

March 29

$295 million

Some engines posed a fire risk;

repair defective door latches

on older cars.

10

9

’17

2016

$14

a share

13

1

4

12

2

3

11

10

9

2016

’17

1: Sept. 8, 2016

$640 million

Faulty door latches

on various vehicles.

2: March 29

$295 million

Some engines posed a fire

risk; repair defective door

latches on older cars.

3: June 28

$142 million

Defective driveshafts

on vans

4: Oct. 18

$267 million

Faulty door latches on

late-model pickup trucks

Sources: the company; WSJ Market Data Group (shares)

Companies such as Waymo LLC, the driverless-car division of Google parent Alphabet Inc., don’t face similar manufacturing headaches and have so far shown signs they hope to avoid them, preferring to partner with existing auto makers while remaining focused on their technological expertise.

Ford’s latest recall charge, at $267 million, is larger than the company’s investment on an annual basis in Argo AI, a driverless car startup it took control of earlier this year. The charge, which is being booked in the fourth quarter, covers faulty door latches on 1.3 million F-series pickup trucks sold during the past three model years.

“Charges like these demonstrate that perhaps all was not well in the Ford factories over the last couple of years,” said Brian Johnson, a Barclays PLC analyst.

Ford executives contend recent disclosures of recall expenses are part of an effort to be more transparent amid recent record recalls across the industry and don’t reflect consistent quality problems in the company’s vehicles.

“Ford’s vehicle quality—based on trusted third party surveys—is near an all-time high and we have achieved some of the industry’s lowest warranty costs,” said
Joe Hinrichs,
Ford’s global operations chief. Warranty expenses reflect auto makers’ costs for covering repairs in the initial years after a car is sold. Recall charges are one-time expenses taken to fix defective parts.

The company’s flagship Ford brand ranked fourth among more than 30 others in a recent J.D. Power survey measuring customer complaints during the first three months owning a vehicle, up a number of spots from previous years.

A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst forced Mr. Hinrichs to address recalls during a conference in Boston earlier this month, asserting the issue had “plagued a little bit” Ford’s North American business this year. “How do you plan to address that quality deficiency going forward?” he asked.

Mr. Hinrichs pointed to higher industrywide recalls as a factor while acknowledging Ford has “had a number of issues, door latches probably being the most prominent recently.” The parts suffered a design defect in the company’s collaboration with a supplier, which then infected much of Ford’s lineup, he said. He expressed confidence the quality of Ford vehicles is “the best they’ve ever been” and predicted “a better environment going forward.”

Ford has other potential safety problems that, while not prompting recalls, have spurred federal regulators to open or intensify ongoing investigations in recent months. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is probing complaints of loose steering wheels in Fusion sedans and exhaust fumes allegedly leaking into interior cabins of Explorer sport-utility vehicles.

Ford, which has said it is cooperating with the probes, started offering complimentary modifications and inspections of the Explorers in October.

Ford’s expensive recalls started in September 2016 with a $640 million charge taken after the auto maker increased to 2.4 million a recall of vehicles with door latches that could allow doors to open while vehicles are driving. Other charges followed this year for recalled vehicles with door-latch problems, poor coolant circulation that risked overheating engines and causing fires, and defective drive shafts.